Pantheon/Strategy

Skill usage

Pantheon holds the highest movement speed in the game at 355, tied with Master Yi. Use his quick movement speed and strong ranged harass from Spear Shot to whittle your opponents down in lane optimally to take full advantage of his strong early game.

Since using Aegis of Zeonia to stun an enemy also refreshes Aegis Protection, he can easily and reliably avoid the first turret hits when diving, then activate Aegis of Zeonia to stop the enemy champion's movement as well as refresh his passive. In situations where Pantheon stays under turret fire for more than a few seconds, he may be able to activate the passive again, resulting in a significant amount of damage ignored. Use this fact to set up powerful early-game tower-dives together with your jungler. This also works well against physical abilities that apply on-hit effects such as Parrrley, Mystic Shot, and Bladesurge, or turret attacks. This will not block physical abilities like Volley or Ace in the Hole.

Using Grand Skyfall to assist your allies across the map can quickly turn the tides of battle, putting your allies at an advantage.

While in midair from Pantheon'sGrand Skyfall you can select a target for Aegis of Zeonia and when you land, you will jump at the target stunning from a larger distance (est. 1300) than the standard range (this may be a glitch).

Grand Skyfall makes him one of the best gankers in the game since he can ignore ward coverage.

Having Exhaust and Flash as summoner spells, along with Heartseeker Strike as your first skill, make for an effective first blood combination when in a side lane with a partner. Those summoner spells also provide two effective escape mechanisms.

Although this is no longer relevant in Patch 4.21, this is an explanation of what you could do in Patch 4.20. The Dragon's attack speed was lowered, and at level 3 with some AS Marks you could fight the dragon solo by using your auto attacks. When you have full stacks on Pantheon's passive, Aegis Protection, start the dragon; the passive will block the first hit. Use Aegis of Zeonia to proc it again right away. When Aegis Protection is down and Aegis of Zeonia is on cooldown, AA once then immediately use Spear Shot and then two more AAs; the passive will be up again.

Build usage

Building an early Brutalizer can solidify his early lane dominance and help you take your lane opponent out of the game.

If you find your opponents are escaping you too often, or you're being focused down, a Frozen Mallet will give you some additional durability in fights, and ensure that fleeing opponents are slowed after using Aegis of Zeonia to engage them.

A Last Whisper is a good item to build on Pantheon and adds a lot of additional burst in his damage providing if he has enough attack damage items. Combine with The Black Cleaver to shred high amounts of enemies' armor and to deal almost true damage to squishy targets.

Ravenous Hydra passive and active synergizes well with his strong wave clear with Heartseeker Strike. It also gives sustain, which is something that Pantheon lacks.

Youmuu's Ghostblade is a powerful item on Pantheon that gives him the armor penetration and cooldown reduction he needs. While not as powerful as The Black Cleaver in that regard, the active compensates for that, giving Pantheon much needed mobility.

Because Heartseeker Strike's passive makes both autoattacks and Spear Shot crit 100% of the time when an enemy is under 15% health, consider Infinity Edge for its ability to increase crit damage from 200% to 250%. Of course its high Attack Damage scales well on Pantheon's abilities, too.

Hexdrinker is the best option for Pantheon against magic damage champions, due to having magic resistance and making him stronger damage-wise.

Pantheon's high base damage and scalings allow him to sacrifice some offense to build defensive items. This makes him tankier, which is actually recommended as Pantheon does not have as much mobility as an assassin, and makes him more useful by late game, as part of the team's frontline.

If you are looking for armor items, Frozen Heart is the perfect choice. The extra mana helps as Pantheon is very mana hungry. The cooldown reduction also has synergy, as Pantheon is an AD caster and naturally likes to build cooldown reduction. The passive and the armor allows Pantheon to whitstand the common auto-attackers on the metagame.

Randuin's Omen is also a good choice for armor, mainly due to the active. It actually makes Pantheon tankier against physical damage, despite the lower amount of armor, due to the HP. However, it lacks the cooldown reduction and mana from Frozen Heart.

Banshee's Veil is the best defensive item offering magic resistance for Pantheon. It blocks one spell, which is extremely important as Pantheon is not very mobile and is very prone to CC spells.

Boots of Mobility are also a very good option, not only because they are very cheap, but also because Pantheon can roam very easily thanks to his Grand Skyfall ability.

While Trinity Force seems like a good item to build for the Spellblade passive thanks to his low cooldown of Spear Shot, in reality, Pantheon's base attack damage is very low. So Pantheon is not going to benefit a lot from the Spellblade passive, nor he is going to benefit from most of Trinity Force's stats.

Tear of the Goddess can be used to solve Pantheon's early game mana problems, and when fully stacked and upgraded to Muramana, it gives Spear Shot frightening damage due to Muramana's passive also working with single target spells. However, Tear of the Goddess sacrifice Pantheon's early game power, and it is not recommended, because it's on early game where Pantheon is the most powerful and he will fall off even harder. The only actual reason to build Tear of the Goddess is when you are new to the game and doesn't know how to properly manage a champion's mana pool.

Recommended builds

Summoner's Rift

Starting

21

Essential

Offensive

Defensive

Consumables

Summoner's Rift (Jungle)

Starting

2

Essential

Offensive

Defensive

Consumables

The Howling Abyss

Starting

2

Essential

Offensive

Defensive

Consumables

The Crystal Scar

Starting

2

Essential

Offensive

Defensive

Consumables

The Twisted Treeline

Starting

Essential

Offensive

Defensive

Consumables

Countering

Starting the game with a Cloth Armor + Health Potions allow you to potentially outsustain Pantheon's early game damage. The armor will mitigate his damage and with the potions, Pantheon will waste mana trying to harass you. This may reduce your early game damage, but it is well worth if that means preventing Pantheon from dominating you and snowballing early.

This start is better if your champion already has natural sustain, such as in case of Nasus.

In addition, Cloth Armor builds into a lot of useful items, so you don't necessarily have to sell this item later. For AP champions for example, this item builds into Seeker's Armguard which in turn builds into Zhonya's Hourglass, which is in fact a good item against Pantheon to survive his burst and boost your own damage output.

Buying health items can help you to survive through one or two combos. However, you will then need health regeneration and/or life steal to sustain yourself in lane against him. After two or three combos early game, he can be without mana so he shouldn't be a threat; take advantage of this to shut him down.

Additionally, Grand Skyfall can be used to escape when being ganked (or counter ganks) if you realize it beforehand. In such a case, use a Knockup to stop him from escaping as it will put his Grand Skyfall on a 10-second cooldown. Use this time to burst Pantheon down.

As Pantheon can cast Aegis of Zeonia on you while dropping down in Grand Skyfall and then have it land from outside its normal range, using dashes and escapes to avoid Grand Skyfall may have you stunned nonetheless. If you expect to survive his initial burst damage after being stunned, save your escapes for after that instead of getting away from Grand Skyfall. Of course, avoiding the damage from Grand Skyfall all together may be a larger concern - but consider the possibility.

Avoid laning against him if your champion relies on being on low health to reap the full potential of the champion (such as Aatrox , Olaf and Tryndamere) as his Certain Death will cause him to do a lot more damage to you at low heath.